


part

by CosmicTurnabout



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, F/M, One-Sided Attraction, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal Spoilers, Pining, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26481211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicTurnabout/pseuds/CosmicTurnabout
Summary: Nightmares are fraught, even for one as powerful and wise as Emet-Selch.
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Emet-Selch's Wholesomely Debauched Bookclub FFXIV-Writes 2020 Collection





	part

**Author's Note:**

> For the FFXIV writing challenge prompt #14: “part.”

In his nightmares, she was always breaking.

Emet-Selch did not often dream, and when he did, nightmares were few. But there were times when his dark thoughts and bitter brooding coalesced, as if to drench his soul in pitch black. Then—he traversed fell scapes indeed. Worlds that looked like they had suffered the Doom of Amaurot, and more besides. Roiling orange skies, crackling earth, rivers of blood and bile. Unknown beasts howling in the distance. It fit his mood; it fit his very being.

It mattered not the age, or the country, or the vessel he took. The nightmare was the same each time. In it, he spoke to Azem—a facsimile of her, mayhap, as close to the true Azem as his mind could approximate. White hair hung tight and close-cropped, tickling her chin. She wore a half-mask, and her lips were a charmingly strange shade of purple. _Why did she hide her eyes so?_ he always wondered. _She had the most astounding eyes._

The backdrop was the familiar hellscape. As it matched him, it matched her. She was as flighty and fierce as she had ever been in life. She was talking to him about—a philosophical point, a new creation, a quirk in the layout of the streets in the Polyleritae District. Something trivial. He could never remember what. She seemed to be unaware of the state of the land around her. Or mayhap she ignored it. Azem did love to see only what she wanted to see. Her constant traveling had made her priorities utterly bizarre. She spoke in a stumbling, clipped way, as she always did when excited.

Emet-Selch did not respond to her. He simply stared, and listened. Was this truly what she had sounded like? His ears strained, trying to commit the sound of her to memory. But was this nightmare not of his own making? Why did—he?—have to remember?

It was not long before Hydaelyn appeared overhead. Too soon. Always too soon. Emet-Selch could not say how, but Her essence filled the sky, and She raised Her hand up. Only he could see it. His mouth opened, but the hand dropped like a guillotine before he could shout any kind of warning. Azem was mid-sentence when she was split. He saw her crack down the middle, zigzag fractures scuttling across her face; saw bits of her go rocketing off, hair and eyes and lips floating away on waves of aether. He knew that was not actually the way of it—in reality, when Hydaelyn had broken the world, Azem’s whole form had been diluted. She had not literally shattered into pieces. And yet this was how his mind parsed the godly act. It was a horrifically violent thing to witness, but there was no sound, no blood. She was simply an object, crumbling down a line into its constituent parts.

No. Not an object. That was the great evil of Hydaelyn—the greatest, in his mind. With Her mighty strike, She had made them all forget. It might take centuries for the accumulated memories of the unsundered to fully leak away, but sure as shade was cool, they were forgetting. It was already so difficult to recall Azem’s voice. It took all of him to bring it to mind, to make it real in this dream.

In this nightmare.

He tried so damn hard, and still she disappeared. Dissolving like mist through his fingers. Wreathing her way through them. And... wreathing into the cracks in his soul, his heart.

Emet-Selch was... thrown somewhere else. He hung in blackness now, ripped from the doomed hellscape. _Emet-Selch_ , said a voice in the void. _Hades_. Azem’s voice. Honey and spice. It echoed a million times over, and he seemed to hear every letter ring in his head, bounce against his skull.

There was silence for a long span, longer than he could reckon. Then, suddenly, a mirror broke in front of him, shattering into fourteen pieces. His heart beat a breakneck rhythm. He knew what this meant. He only had so much time. If he could just find the right piece, he could identify her and raise her up to his station. He knelt down, looked through the shards. Each showed a different form, a different face—bodies the shards of Azem had fallen into. Lalafellin warriors, Elezen scholars, Roegadyn sailors, Auri mages. So many different time periods, so many different pieces. And yet the same soul. Her parts were everywhere scattered, but here... she resided in one of these bodies. Which?

There were only fourteen shards, but the glass slid out of his grip as if greased each time he thought he had chosen correctly. The Lalafell, perchance? No, the Au Ra had the look of a wanderer, so then... but the eyes of this Elezen, so like hers...

It took too long, even in this dream space. He grew weary. He sorted through those pieces like a man possessed, coming back to the same shards again and again, but all for naught. He could not make a decision; he could not see her. He... could... not... place her. Mayhap he would never be able to. 

_I never had enough time to commit her to memory. Never enough time._

He was waking up. Day pulled at him. Life pulled at him, and he felt himself drifting away, out of the dream.

The last thing he remembered seeing was Azem running through those mirror shards, head over her shoulder, laughing at him. The true Azem, in her too-long robes. Bidding him to follow, but always staying one step ahead. Always out of reach. _Catch me if you can_. It was so like the Traveler to appear to him only when it was impossible to follow her.

Deep inside, he knew she did not want to be caught.

When Emet-Selch woke, he found his hand hurting. He shifted and held it up to the early morning light filtering through the trees overhead. There was a gash down the middle of his palm, jagged, as if made by a sharp edge. Blood stained his glove. Beside him, just within reach, rested a bloodied shard of purple glass. 

Even in dreams she cut. Even in dreams she denied him. And she had left a gift all the same.

He snorted. The absolute cheek of her. The piece of broken glass shone brightly, winking in defiance. He could not stand it anymore. He closed his hand around the shard, snuffing its light. The glass cut further into his palm, and just like that, he began to forget.

Only pain remained. 


End file.
